August 29, 2008 Desoto Bend Iowa Steam Devils and other Fog Scenes

Yet another fog outing after 3 hours of sleep. These are cool when
they pan out. Lately they've not panned out so well. I figured this go
around clouds would not screw up the temps from dropping. I wondered if
the winds would, but they fell off to nothing pretty early. Blair wasn't
reporting very cool when I got up, shortly before 4 a.m. Tekamah however
was saying 49. I do the regular "dew check" out my windows, and see the
grass has some. If it's not there, there can still be lake fog, but
rarely much crop fog. So anyway, since it was that cold and dewy I
figured Murray Hill would be a good option. With a very crescent moon to
rise around 5, I knew moon-lit ops weren't there, so no need to get up
there too early.

I pass some fog just as I get into IA, then drive out of it. I get to
Mondamin and say screw Murray Hill and head back south. Getting
widespread, thicker crop fog, seems to be very tricky. It's either some
fields have some of it, or the fog is general fog and far too deep/tall
to get above. Just hard to get all the fields to produce a lot of it. I
think you about need excessive rain in an area, followed by very cool
temps. All I know is it is getting annoying waking up for it and it never
happening. Reminds me of aurora "chasing". Can waste a lot of time for
the rare times it works out. At least with these there's lake/river
steam/fog to shoot instead.

The crescent moon came up as I approached Missouri Valley on I29. When
it is very crescent like it was(2%) you get what is called "Earth Shine".
Sunlight reflects off Earth enough to illuminate the dark side of the
moon some. I just needed to get somewhere to shoot it. I also wanted to
shoot cars in that fog I'd driven through. The above is that location,
only maybe 2 miles east of Blair. I should have ISO'd up some of them and
froze the vehicles more.

I think I'm now standing on top of my car, tripod fully extended,
trying not to move during the 10 second shutters. I'm sure the cars on
highway 30 thought there must be something wrong with me.

Another not so interesting shot of cars and fog. It looked a lot
cooler than these blurred/streaking stills. I blew what was cool with
them moments after this one. The headlights had corona rainbow circles
with them, as they drove through the fog. It only worked from a certain
spot closer to the highway, right as they went through the fog down
there. Of course the fog moves as I get setup. That is one annoying thing
about fog scenes like these. When you see an especially cool shot, you'd
better be taking it very soon. Stuff changes so much and so frequently.
Two areas on the highway had fog, and cars doing that with their lights.
Both moved or dissipated at the same time. I was tempted to stick around
and hope it came/moved back, but I'm just unable to do that with so much
else to shoot.

Still on my car.

In Desoto now.

I of course had to get a shot of a car under there, so I used mine,
then ran back down the road. It's really strange, when I backed up to get
under it, it really didn't look like you were in it then. You get away
from it some and can then see it. I backed into it and was like, where
the hell did it go.

At times it looked very cool being under or near the edge of it. It's
just very hard to capture it like it looks. This above looks pretty
funny. That is actually a grey car that drove by slowly, as I sat behind
my car with the camera. Speed limit is 30 in there, and people stop on
the road all the time to watch wildlife. Considering that and the time,
on a Friday, it's not a huge deal to sit where I was.

There was another vehicle right behind the first one, moving a lot
quicker, maybe 30mph. Those were the only two I saw for quite a while.

Part of me hates the fog and sunrise. You just never know where the
hell you want to be and when you want to be there, so many options. The
Missouri River is over there, you can see it on the right.

Heron on the lake. I've never seen so many of them there. Same with
the deer. If you want to see wildlife, that place is pretty packed this
year. I think they have openings for deer hunts in there soon though, and
well. Something about that seems so ironic, lol. National wildlife
refuge.....boom! Gotta wonder what the deer think. Lies!

I'm bringing a fisherman with me next time. He was making some
interesting compositions/shots. I'm just not real big on pointing my
camera at someone that may not want it.

I need to learn how to process the RAW files better for scenes like
this. The colors and lightness just never look right. Change the white
balance all one wants and it still looks goofy with sun on steam.

I don't think he liked having his picture taken. I thought I was far
enough away he'd just think I was pointing at the nearby Heron.

This is why it is good to keep moving around to new locations while
the scenes all keep changing so fast, with the rising sun. I saw some
strong rays in areas, then stopped to shoot this one. I then saw the
bright corona action going on around it. Pretty dang cool. Same corona
type thing I got the last time, only this time I was actually seeing it
at the time, since the tress were dimming the brightness a lot more than
the other time without anything blocking the sun.

I had to try for the fisherman scene again, so back here I went. I
screwed up some cool shots with him and the heron flying around. For one
I had the exposure compensation set at almost +2 stops, since the scenes
had been needing it. So each of my heron shots with him were blown out.
And I never stopped down far enough for a better DOF. Always next time!
Or not, since I never see anyone fishing in the steam from the rocks
early.

I'm sure he's thinking, "damn kids!". I'm in my driver's seat with my
car pointing away from there. I'd try and look through the back window to
see when he wasn't looking, then grab a couple. I'm also at 400mm and not
terribly close anyway.

Best stuff from the whole morning is on the following page.

Hmmm, I just thought of something. I need a boat, or at least a little
kayak. Then again, losing my camera gear in a lake doesn't sound too
thrilling. I could get some closer steam devil shots from a boat, or just
close scenes like the above...etc.

I love these things! Two steam devils attacking that building over
there. Or at least it looks that way. I learned one thing with these, and
that is just over expose the sunlight on the water. It's hard to give the
vortex the exposure it deserves if you don't.

There is actually a really big steam devil at the front of that boat.
It looked like they drove right towards the thing when it formed. It was
never really defined. It's going up out of the top of the frame though.

This one has a debris bowl! Right above the water.

The motion in these things really is incredible. Looked cooler than
the motion in any of the tornadoes I've seen. Just rapid rings appearing
to go up and down in there. I will definitely shoot some video next time.

With the right conditions, it is very easy to watch them form over and
over. It can at times be hard to get stills of them though. Often you
find one right before it vanishes. Staring into the reflecting sunlight
doesn't make it any easier. It was around 50-55 now, and the side of my
black canon was getting warm. I was using the lens to block the sunlight,
holding the camera sideways. The reflected light was just really quite
powerful. I actually thought it was warming up rapidly, since it felt so
warm now. I then go to a different area later and found it was still
quite cool out.

I did not spend much time doing these. Maybe 15 minutes I guess. I'll
have to spend more time at it the next time around. I'm sure you can get
some rather interesting ones.

Just a hair cool! This one had an outer vortex/sheath around the main
one.

Another shot of the same one. Yeah, I really must get video of these.
The motion is simply captivating and interesting.

In many like the above, that motion is not slow and peaceful. You can
tell the motion is quite fast because on all these the definition of the
vortex is never really clear. I'm hand holding these, and I believe many
where 1/400th or so. Some of the ones up further on the page are close to
showing the banding structure in the vortex. Most are blurred, simply
because it is changing so damn fast inside them.